Recently, along with change in residential environment, there has been an increasing demand to remove harmful airborne substances such as pollen, mite, mite waste, house dust and the like that may cause allergic disease such as hey fever, asthma, cutaneous atopy, conjunctivitis and the like of mammals including human, to realize more healthy and comfortable life.
In order to meet such a demand, it is effective to remove an antigenic substance (allergen) as the cause of allergic diseases described above, and air conditioning apparatuses with various filters and dust collectors have been developed (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 8-173843).
These air conditioning apparatuses are of the type that absorb or filter harmful airborne substance by sucking in air in the space through a filter. Therefore, such apparatuses inherently necessitate maintenance such as filter exchange for use over a long period of time, and in addition, satisfactory performance can not always be attained because of insufficient properties of the filter.
In such type of air conditioning apparatuses, when collection of pollen is intended, for example, the pollen having antigenic protein as the cause of hey fever is physically trapped and remains on a collection filter. The physically trapped pollen easily comes off from the collection filter, and therefore, there is a problem that at the time of starting or stopping operation, or at the time of filter exchange, the trapped pollen might possibly be scattered again. Further, even if the pollen itself can be trapped by the collection filter, the antigenic protein having smaller grain size may pass through the collection filter, and therefore, the antigenic substance cannot be eradicated.
A pollen processing apparatus that denatures the antigenic substance by heat treatment, in addition to various filters, has also been developed (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 7-807).
Such an air conditioning apparatus, however, consumes much energy for the heat treatment, resulting in much increased electricity bill at home and environmentally negative influence. If such an air conditioning apparatus is used in the summer season or hot region, room temperature would considerably increase and the user would feel uncomfortable. Therefore, such a mechanism cannot be used incorporated in a cooler.
An apparatus that deactivates cedar hey fever antigen by ultraviolet radiation, in addition to various filters, has also been developed (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 6-154298).
Such an air conditioning apparatus, however, consumes much energy for the ultraviolet radiation, resulting in much increased electricity bill at home and environmentally negative influence. Further, according to the reference above, in order to lower the antibody value of cedar pollen sample, ultraviolet irradiation with the intensity of at least 1.3 mW/cm2 for at least 50 seconds is necessary. Namely, the ability to deactivate antigen of cedar hey fever is low, and hence, this cannot be considered a practical technique.
An air purifier generating ozone by ultraviolet irradiation, in addition to various filters, has also been developed (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2000-111106).
Such an air conditioning apparatus, however, consumes much energy for the ultraviolet radiation, resulting in much increased electricity bill at home and environmentally negative influence. Further, ozone emitted to the atmosphere may in some cases affect life of mammals including humans.
Antigenic substance must be processed differently type by type as the antigenic substance cause allergic reaction that differ one person to another, and none of the air conditioning apparatuses above can solve this problem. Further, effect of various removing means or deactivating means differ type by type of the antigenic substance, and this problem is not solved, either.
In view of the foregoing, an object of the present invention is to provide a method of evaluating performance of various activation gases deactivating various antigenic substances, which method is necessary in realizing an air conditioning apparatus that can efficiently remove and/or deactivate antigenic substance by an activation gas of the type and/or amount matching the type and/or amount of the antigenic substance, to which reaction differ one person to another.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for generating a processed antigenic substance that can generate the antigenic substance processed by the activation gas to be used as evaluation sample, in uniform quality and in a simple manner.